.June 17, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



837 



authors in a thoroughly judicial way, although 

 with a bias towards Pasteur's main contention 

 perhaps unavoidable in the light of our present 

 knowledge. " Those who attempt to explain 

 the putrefaction of animal substances by ani- 

 malcules," wrote Liebig, "argue much in the 

 ■same way as a child who imagines he can ex- 

 plain the rapidity of flow of the river Ehine by 

 -attributing it to the violent agitations caused 

 by the numerous water-wheels of Mainz, in the 

 neighborhood of Bingen." Liebig, as is well 

 known, was soon forced to retreat from the po- 

 :sition that the alcoholic fermentation is due not 

 to the activity of the living yeast plant, but to 

 the decomposition of the nitrogenous compo- 

 nents, and was obliged to yield to the over- 

 whelming evidence adduced by Pasteur in sup- 

 3)ort of the view that not the dead or the dying, 

 but the live yeast-cell was responsible for the 

 phenomenon. Liebig later acknowledged de- 

 feat so far as to admit the share of the live 

 yeast plant in the process, but still clung 

 tenaciously to his hypothesis of a transmission 

 of molecular vibration, itself a modification of 

 the view long before advanced by Willis and 

 ■Stahl, while Pasteur advocated with equal 

 tenacity the view that the yeast plant simply 

 breathes at the expense of the oxygen of the 

 sugar molecule. The recent discovery by E. 

 Buchner of an alcohol-generating enzyme in 

 the fluid pressed out of pulverized yeast-cells — a 

 ■discovery, by the way, sadly in need of con- 

 firmation — can hardly be said to conclude the 

 •controversy, although bringing us to somewhat 

 •closer quarters with the real problem. 



Pasteur's memorable I'esearches upon anthrax 

 are described at some length and in a very in- 

 teresting fashion, although with an exaggeration 

 of the hero's r61e as compared with that of 

 Koch and others, which is perhaps more par- 

 •donable in a biographer than it would be in an 

 historian of science. There are not lacking 

 :Some other instances of unnecessary magnifica- 

 tion of Pasteur's achievements — although one is 

 •tempted to ask oneself if they can ever really be 

 made to bulk too large — and of French bacteriol- 

 ogy in general. Is it quite correct, for in- 

 stance, to mention Calmette's work upon the 

 production of immunity towards abrin (p. 197) 

 in such a way as to convey the impression that 



he was the pioneer in this work ? Despite 

 some blemishes of this sort, however, and de- 

 spite, too, an excess of divided infinitives and 

 a profusion of bellicose metaphors, this biog- 

 raphy presents a just and interesting account 

 of the life of a great man. 



The closing chapters of the book contain a 

 vivid and picturesque description of the mas- 

 ter's methods of work, of his founding of the 

 Institut Pasteur, of his work on rabies and of 

 his last years. In simplicity of life and in the 

 patience, persistence and fire that mark the 

 genius, Pasteur stands as one of the shining 

 figures in the science of the century. "He 

 makes me uneasy," said one of his early friends; 

 "he does not recognize the limits of science; he 

 loves only quite insoluble problems." At the 

 dedication, on November 14, 1888, of the great 

 institution that bears his name, Pasteur himself 

 gave a bit of his inmost life. " This that I ask 

 of you is what you again, in your turn, will de- 

 mand of the disciples who gather round you, 

 and for the investigator it is the hardest ordeal 

 which he can be asked to face, to believe that 

 he has discovered a great scientific truth, to be 

 possessed with a feverish desire to make it 

 known and yet to impose silence on himself for 

 days, for weeks, sometimes for years, whilst 

 striving to destroy those very conclusions and 

 only permitting himself to proclaim his dis- 

 covery when all the adverse hypotheses have 

 been exhausted." Yes, that is a difficult task. 



" But when, after many trials, you have at 

 length succeeded in dissipating every doubt, 

 the human soul experiences one of the greatest 

 joj^s of which it is capable." 



Edwin O. Jordan. 



University of Chicago. 



A College Course of Laboratory Experiments in 

 General Physics. By Samuel W. Steatton 

 and Robert A. Millikan. Chicago, The 

 University of Chicago Press. 1898. Pp. 

 100. 



In a recent issue of Science a writer whose 

 specialty is chemistry refers to the following re- 

 mark in which he had indulged: " There is 

 small doubt that, were it not for the expense of 

 printing, every teacher of chemistry would use 

 a text- book made by himself with either pen 



